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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
A bill before Congress would mandate built-in copy-protection on all digital devices. But even technology experts who really want to protect intellectual property think it's a lousy idea.
Mar 29, 2002 | If you think techies hate Microsoft, try asking them about Hollings -- Sen. Ernest F. "Fritz" Hollings, that is, the South Carolina Democrat who finally introduced his long-dreaded copy protection bill into Congress last week. If there's an axis of evil for technology, Hollings has made the list.
Hollings' bill, formerly referred to as the SSSCA (Security Systems Standards and Certification Act) but now dubbed the Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA), would require any device that can "retrieve or access copyrighted works in digital form" to include a federally mandated copy protection system.
That covers not just your next iPod or Windows Media Player, but just about every digital device with a screen, a printer, an audio jack, a disk drive, a memory stick, or several input/output devices yet to be invented. Your computer, your camera, your car stereo.
CBDTPA's goal is to force a powerful sector of U.S. industry -- makers and sellers of digital hardware and software -- to submit to the needs of the smaller but more established entertainment lobby. This legislative approach to copy protection has already riled consumers of digital entertainment who fear that hardware copy protection will make their lives more difficult. But it's also raising concern among standards experts who already support what is known as "digital rights management" -- strategies for protecting copyrighted intellectual property.
Such experts say that by trying to enforce technology standards on a timetable driven by Hollywood's fears, CBDTPA will more likely undermine existing work toward effective digital rights management. Some say the hypothetical standard sought by Hollings' bill will only work for major studios. Many are sure it won't work at all.
Everything you need to know about whom CBDTPA is meant to benefit is summed up near the top of the bill.
The Congress finds:
(1) The lack of high quality digital content continues to hinder consumer adoption of broadband Internet service and digital television products.
Hollings sees the lax demand for these products and services as a dire problem in need of government intervention. "Roughly 85 percent of Americans are offered broadband in the marketplace, but only 10 to 12 percent have signed up," he said when introducing the bill last week. "Most Americans are averse to paying $50 a month for faster access to e-mail, or $2,000 for a fancy HDTV set that plays analog movies."
Such consumer behavior might sound to most observers like common sense in a recession, but Hollings offered a different diagnosis: "If more high-quality content were available, consumer interest would likely increase," he said.
Why isn't this content available? Digital piracy, the bill says, has prevented makers of "high quality digital content" (sources say Disney and News Corp. are leading backers of the bill) from producing the high-resolution, downloadable movies that would supposedly send Americans running to buy new HDTVs and order fat Net connections to their homes.
CBDTPA lays the blame for piracy squarely at the feet of tech companies:
(7) Competing business interests have frustrated agreement on the deployment of existing technology in digital media devices to protect digital content on the Internet or on digital broadcast television.
Translation: The makers of digital hardware and software are focusing on their own bottom lines, rather than Hollywood's. Microsoft alone is expected to rake in $29 billion in revenue this year, nearly double that of the entire music biz, and comparable (depending on who's counting) to the entire U.S. movie industry.
But bundle the whole range of publishing, new media, broadcasting, film, television, cable and satellite communications involved in making and shipping digital content, and the result is a $300 billion sector, according to Andersen Consulting. The larger goal behind CBDTPA isn't just to keep "Attack of the Clones" from being Napstered; it's to kick-start consumer demand throughout the entire broadband chain.
In that light, Hollings' goal may be laudable. But the people who actually create technology standards say his approach is doomed to failure.
